On Love and Hope

I love a lot of things. I love my parents, I love my girlfriend, I love my dogs. I love my friends, my siblings, my cousins, my grandparents and my aunts and uncles. I love Harry Potter and tea and funky hats. I love language and literature and learning. I love opportunities, making new friends, discovering exciting ideas and places. What I don't love, is I don't love being sad. I don't love being angry. Unfortunately, in this world, a lot makes me sad, and a lot makes me angry.

But many things also give me hope. And in order to let that hope grow the most important thing that I can do, that anyone can do is listen to the people that they love and respect. To not ignore the words of someone that we don't agree with just because we don't agree with them. To accept that they are worth something. Don't ignore what you love just because there is something standing in your way. Be kind. And acknowledge and perceive how what you love defines you, and how you define the people who love you.

What else is there to do?

So many people are trying to do good in this world, a world that seems at times to have lost so, so much. But I think there is more that we have to gain too. Here are a few sources I've found of ways to donate or get involved, in a variety of areas that are affected right now, and if anyone has any further suggestions please comment or reblog.

Here is an article I found  about ways to help after Charlottesville, including verified gofundme campaigns: http://time.com/money/4899250/charlottesville-virginia-victims-help/
And here is an article I found about ways to help after the Barcelona attack: http://elitedaily.com/news/politics/everything-can-help-barcelona-van-attack-victims-right-now/2047875/

There have been many other injustices going around lately, but those seem to be two of the biggest right now. I also have a personal list of some more general ways to help causes you care about:

• Install tab for a cause as a browser extension. You collect a 'heart' for every tab you open, and you can later donate hearts as monetary donations to a variety of charaties. This works for both Chrome and Firefox, which are what I primarily use. I'm not sure about other browsers: http://tab.gladly.io/
• If you use Amazon, signing in and going to smile.amazon.com instead of amazon.com enables Amazon Smile, which donates 0.5% of the price of eligible Amazon Smile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice, and has all of the same amazon products. My Amazon smile, for instance, donates to the Harry Potter Alliance.
• Donate blood (if eligible*). Brandeis has blood drives 3 times a year, and if you go to the red cross website you can find places near you. http://www.redcross.org/give-blood
• Every December the vlogbrothers (John and Hank Green) host a YouTube event where people make YouTube videos in support of their favored charities. The basic idea is that the charities represented in the videos with the most views and votes get a share of the money that is raised on a related Indiegogo campaign. In P4A 2016 they raised $862,544 from indiegogo donations, $350,000 from John & Hank & other matching donors (1st half) $400,000 from the Save the Children donor, $400,000 from the Partners in Health donor, $110,929 from the FTDWS (Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck) bank account, $26,050 from community matching donors (2nd half), for a grand total of $2,149,523.You can find out more about the Project for Awesome here: http://www.projectforawesome.com/about

Again, if there is anything you think is important and that I should have added on please let me know in a comment or reblog and I'll do my best to update this post as needed.

The weapon we have is love,

Talia



*There are some problematic issues over who is eligible to donate blood, but the official red cross eligibility data is here: http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requirements/eligibility-criteria-topic